OK-S
by AKAAkira
Summary: Raku bets everything on a final suicidal charge at the Heretic God threatening Chitoge. The outcome...isn't quite as anyone expected.
1. The Bed of Reckoning

**Summary**: Raku bets everything on a final suicidal charge at the Heretic God threatening Chitoge. The outcome...isn't quite as anyone expected.

Takes place on the Nisekoi timeline, sometime after Marika's introduced. Doesn't really matter when exactly, though I wrote this with the assumption that Raku and Chitoge are still fake-dating.

**Disclaimer: Nisekoi is owned by Naoshi Komi and Campione! by Jou Takedzuki. I own absolutely nothing in relation to either of these works, except for the plot of this particular story.**

* * *

Raku's eyes flickered open, and then he hissed in pain.

There was a gasp of surprise. Even as Raku began to struggle upright, someone pressed him down with firmness much gentler than he was accustomed to.

"Raku!" whispered Chitoge's voice, somewhere on the edge of his consciousness. "You're okay! D-don't move yet, you've been hurt...you've been hurt real bad."

A chill went up his spine. Hearing _that_ from Chitoge, who used to handle him like a punching bag... It was unsettling. He was suddenly afraid that he looked a lot more messed up than he felt.

"What...what happened?" Disjointed memories flashed into his mind, one after another—the phone call from his "girlfriend"; a desperate cry for help; that horrifying explosion, heard from both the phone and off into the distance. Running for her, filled with fear; telling, downright _ordering_, Shuu, Kosaki, and Ruri to stay at school, stay safe; the back alleys of the city, along a trail of bodies, until he saw Chitoge and—and—

Tentatively, he opened his eyes again, letting the light enter gradually—at least he knew now that the headache from earlier must've been from that, instead of a cracked skull or something—and saw Chitoge's face, relieved and scared at the same time, hovering over him. From the make of the room, he guessed he was in a hospital, occupying the bed. On the other side was his father, looking dead serious, as well as, surprisingly, Chitoge's dad.

It was his father who spoke up first, with none of his usual easy demeanor. "What happened? What _happened_? I don't even know where to begin! What possessed you to _body tackle_ a Heretic God? By yourself, no less! Why did you not call for help the moment you saw something was wrong? You weren't raised to become a suicidal idiot, boy!"

Raku's eye twitched. "Old man, whose fault do you think it was that I grew used to violence and explosions on a weekly basis _since I was four years old_!? How was I supposed to know this time was any different!?" Though, he could concede, it had indeed been different. For one thing, the only fact he knew for sure was that Chitoge had been singled out and attacked with decidedly lethal force. At first he had been afraid it had been members from his father's yakuza group after her. But the people he found, sprawled on the ground... "You said, 'Heretic God'? What's that supposed to be, some kind of a rank in your groups?"

The two men in the room exchanged a look, and then Raku's father nodded, looking just a bit uncomfortable.

"I'll explain it to him then," Chitoge's father said, before turning back to the boy. "Raku-kun, I'll get straight to the point. Do you believe in magic?"

He blinked. Just once. "You're kidding me."

"Not at all, I assure you. Magic is an important, but secretive, part of the world. Practitioners of the craft hold great influence in every aspect of life, whether it be in politics, science, religion, military, and so forth. Without knowledge of magic, your father's and my groups won't be even a tenth as effective as they are right now. Take our protection services, for instance..."

Raku suddenly didn't like where the conversation was heading. "Uh, it's okay, I know enough now, thanks." He had no intention of going into the "family business", and the more he could pretend it didn't exist, the better.

Apparently however, the Beehive head wasn't in the habit of humouring a sixteen-year-old's ever-distant dreams. "Now, many mages know basic forms of hypnosis. So one commonly attempted scam from our clients is to mesmerize our negotiators into thinking they've already been given the money. This would net them our services for however long they keep the spell going, all the while never paying a yen." He let slip a relaxed smile. "Of course, if they actually tried this trick, we'll be forced to dispatch our, ahem, _special negotiators_ in retaliation. I assure you, they will not be as nice."

Raku gaped. It...wasn't every day that a crime lord went and nonchalantly explained his _highly illegal activities_ to a high school boy. "Is this really something you should be saying out loud!? No, first of all, aren't you the one scamming them in the first place!?"

The man looked hurt. "My dear boy, I am saddened to hear you denounce me so! Chitoge hadn't been this harsh on me when I educated her about our family tradition."

The girl in question flushed. "Papa, I was five back then! I thought you were talking about a video game, for Pete's sake!"

The Ichijou heir blinked. "Wait, so you knew about this magic thing?"

"_Video game_."

"Oh. Right."

Considering that he was unhurt enough to banter back and forth like this, Raku made to rise again. This time, Chitoge didn't object, instead helping him sit up with an arm steadying his back as if he might collapse any moment. He flexed his fingers experimentally. From what he could feel, he was just fine. In a hospital gown, and on a hospital bed, but otherwise just fine.

"Right, so...magic exists," he said. "What about it?"

Chitoge's father shrugged his shoulders, and told it blunt. "Gods exist, too."

Raku waited for the punchline.

"Heretic Gods are what we call the various gods that manifest onto the mortal plane when they rebel against their legends, which pulls them out of the Domain of Immortality. They can be from any pantheon, from any myth, so long as that myth is sufficiently old and well-known. Recently-born Heretic Gods traditionally go into a twisted, berserk state for their first few centuries, and during that period they're prone to causing disaster in their wake, simply by existing—sun gods cause droughts, rain gods cause floods, and so on. Even thousands of battle mages organizing to fight them usually end in the one-sided slaughter of humans."

Raku was still waiting for that punchline.

"And then there's the rare human who, through the sheer luck of obtaining three or four miracles in a row as far as we can understand, actually succeed in killing a Heretic God. These godslayers are called Campione, which is Italian for 'champion', and are bestowed with powers of the defeated god by Epimetheus and Pandora so that they could be charged with the protection of humanity from Heretic Gods."

Raku dropped his face into his hands and gave a moan of despair.

"All I wanted was a normal life," he mumbled. "I didn't want to be wrapped up in no yakuza crap. And now you're telling me there's stuff like yakuza mages and yakuza gods and yakuza god-killers. I mean, what the hell!?"

The Beehive head took pity on him. Or at least, he made a gesture that was probably supposed to vaguely resemble taking pity on him. "Oh, it can't be that bad. Campiones automatically become the kings of their home country."

Chitoge groaned quietly. "Papa, you're completely missing the point."

Raku screwed his eyes shut and counted to ten. He felt as if a slight headache was coming on. For a moment, he wondered if he could cut the conversation off there, go _Okay, we're done! I know enough now, so let's pretend this never happened!_ Unfortunately, he couldn't bring himself to. If this was going to be a regular occurrence, he felt obligated to know enough to at least avoid letting Chitoge get into that kind of situation again. Tch. "All right. Lemme get this straight."

He took a deep breath. "Magic exists, gods exist, and that...guy..." If he closed his eyes, the ghost of his profile flitted into his head, that arrogantly noble face who had claimed everything he did was in the right. "That guy I saw, he was a Heretic God. Something...something you said can slaughter thousands of people with ease. I...I have a hard time believing that, actually, but I know I saw enough to know he was..._absurd_. Except..." He frowned, not quite able to accept where his thoughts were heading. "Except, we're alive, so..."

He thought back to Chitoge's dad's comment, about godslayers...Campiones.

"So he was killed," he concluded. Though had no memories of such a thing. "How did someone that powerful get killed?"

His father quirked an eyebrow. "You don't remember?"

"I..." Raku concentrated again, and this time the headache felt more serious. "Not all of it. Most of what I get are...impressions? Like, what he was like and all that. But I remember running into the city, and I thought it was weird because there weren't any policemen around. Then I found the...the bodies..." He hadn't been able to tell whether they were dead or alive, but they were horribly injured, all right—just, not by bullets or knives, which was what he had feared at first. "And, when I followed that trail, I arrived where that guy was, holding—"

Holding Chitoge by her throat.

Raku's eyes widened, and suddenly he felt like an asshole. "Chitoge! Your throat! Damn, are you all right—!?"

Chitoge lightly tapped the area in question—the bruises and burns he could've sworn he had seen there were gone—and gave him a look, as if saying _I'm speaking out loud, bean sprout. That wasn't enough to clue you in?_ Then her mouth twisted into something of a cross between a wry smile and a grimace. "I was more worried about you, you idiot. You lost an arm."

Raku frowned. "What?" he said, confused, until the relevant memory slotted itself into his brain. "Oh shit! I lost an arm!"

He looked at the injury in panic and...found that his arm was still whole. That couldn't be right. The pain of his skin, muscle and bone being torn through was so fresh in his mind, he could still feel phantom pains where the god had lashed out at him, drawing a line across the middle of his upper arm. Which, as mentioned, was still whole.

"Um...I thought I lost an arm?"

His "girlfriend" rolled her eyes, as if the answer was obvious. Her dad chuckled. Raku's father had an exasperated expression on face. "Magic," he said, which did indeed conveniently explain it away. "Campione magic, actually, and you better be thankful because there's nothing we humans have that'll ever perform better."

"Oh," Raku said, blinking. "I see. Uh, good stuff."

"How about we get back to the point where you did something _stupid_ enough to warrant losing an arm?"

"How was I supposed to know it was stupid?" Raku protested. "I mean, come on," he added, more softly. "All I saw was some thug trying to hurt Chitoge. Wouldn't it be stranger for me to _not_ rush at him?"

Chitoge's eyes flickered down, staring at her hands resting on her lap.

"I don't mean that like it's your fault!" Raku said hastily, having deduced where her train of thought was heading. "It's no one's fault. Aren't they, like, powerful enough to cause natural disasters or something? You can't say that it's anyone's fault if a hurricane came out of nowhere."

"But," she said in a small voice, "it was only because of me you were caught in it. I shouldn't have called you—of course you couldn't have helped, you're weaker than me—what in the world was I thinking—?"

"You were scared," Raku said firmly (pointedly deciding to ignore the jab on his physique at the moment), "and when you're scared, I'm supposed to be there for you. I can't call myself your boyfriend without doing that much."

Finally, Chitoge raised her head a little, a tiny smile beginning to form. "Raku..."

She never looked this vulnerable usually. For some reason, Raku felt his stomach flutter, and when he returned the smile it contained more nervousness than he'd like, though there was a touch of reassurance and tenderness in it too.

Raku's father cleared his throat.

Both teens yelped and started, having forgotten that they had an audience. "Uh, so, like I was saying," Raku stammered, doing his best to pretend as if nothing happened. He had no idea what came over him. It was their own fathers who had put them up to fake-dating each other, so they had no need to pretend like that in front of them, right?

"Like I was saying," Raku continued, "I remember trying to tackle him, except I just bounced off like he was some iron pole or something, and that was when he swung at me and cut off my arm with his bare hands." _Burned_ through, more like, and he dimly remembered the pain being intense enough to make him forget the ache on his shoulder, before the entire thing had gone numb. "I forget exactly how, but he collapsed the building I staggered to, and I would've been buried alive if I hadn't already been trying to charge at him again to get him to let go of Chitoge. Though I'm a bit surprised I didn't shut down right there. I...I think I was so half-crazy with panic that I didn't really get that I lost an arm yet."

Now that he thought about it, this whole ordeal had been an entire magnitude of order more violent than anything he had seen before, even including the movies he watched. Viewing the contents of his memories felt something akin to watching a bad dream—it had the same sense of experiencing an unreal terror. Especially considering that the perpetrator hadn't stopped monologuing the entire time he had been hurting Chitoge and tearing Raku apart (not that Raku had cared to pay attention to the words).

"Anyway, that's when one of the men on the ground jumped up," Raku said. He somewhat recognized the man pretending to be down as a Beehive member, one of the higher-ranked and under the direct command of Claude if he wasn't mistaken. "He charged at that Heretic God at the same time as I did, pulling out this sword from nowhere and trying to stab the god in the back. It didn't work, though. At least it got him to drop Chitoge, but the next moment, he had knocked the sword out of that man's hands and...and killed him."

If he had known beforehand that the Heretic God could burn people to a crisp simply by squeezing their necks, Raku would have moved a lot faster.

Chitoge's expression was tinged with fear now, but only slightly, like she was trying to mask her realization of just how close she had actually been to dying (Raku suddenly remembered that she had only been struggling weakly as if she had been on the verge of passing out, back when the Heretic God had been choking her). Her dad, who up until now still had that slightly-amused look to his face, now sported a grimace. "That must've been Giovanni. He had the honour of studying under a certain swordsmaster in Italy before he joined my organization. Honestly, I'm quite conflicted on this. As a father, I wish he had moved to ensure Chitoge's safety quicker, but objectively, I have to admit biding his time was the better choice to ensuring the safety of everyone in this region..."

"And the sword?" Raku's father prompted.

"Ah, yes. He was talented enough to be entrusted with a lesser copy of Longinus—not on the level of the Diavolo Rosso's Cuore di Leone, mind you, but still enough to hurt Heretic Gods if used properly. He was a valued member of the Beehive—we'll miss him."

He turned back to the (slightly confused) Ichijou heir. "Raku-kun, what happened next?"

"U-uh, well, after that the Heretic God still had enough time to turn around and whack me in the ribs hard enough to send me flying again, and—oh crap, my entire rib cage shattered, didn't it?"

"That is indeed what the diagnosis says," Raku's father answered, peering at a clipboard set on a nearby nightstand. "On top of additional complications including ruptured lungs, the shredding of muscles, and blood coagulating all over the surface of your internal organs." (Chitoge's face paled further each time the Ichijou head ticked off an item on the list. Apparently she hadn't taken the time while Raku was unconscious to peek into the doctor's notes.) "You were lucky that it seemed the Heretic God felt it a waste of energy to incinerate you at the same time. But do go on. I'd love to hear what kind of a simpleton you had to be to render yourself immune to all this."

"Oh, that's a Japanese proverb, isn't it?" Chitoge's dad said, laughing. "'Idiots can't catch colds'?"

"I'd think this is a _little bit more severe than catching colds_, thank you very much!" Raku snapped. "You...you know what, I'm just going to finish this, with no more getting off-track."

He sighed. "So, he hit me hard enough to send me flying, but for some reason he sent me in the same direction as where the sword had gone off to earlier—maybe he was hoping I'd land on it and cut myself, or maybe he just wasn't paying attention, I don't know. But I wasn't going to pass up a weapon right beside me, so I grabbed it, staggered to my feet, and charged at him a third time. He didn't turn around as fast this time—again, I don't know why, maybe he thought that second blow must've finished me." Or maybe, Raku suddenly realized, it was because unlike the first two times, he hadn't been screaming like an idiot as he charged. A collapsed lung probably did that for you. "He didn't turn around as fast, but he did turn around, and I realized then that he was holding back the last two attacks 'cause his entire arm was blazing when he struck at me, but this time I made it close enough that I was about to stab him at the same moment, and...and I can't believe I survived that," Raku concluded.

"You can thank that pendant you always carry around for that," Raku's father said gruffly. "Among other things, that locket stopped the brunt of Endovelicus' last blow. It's the only reason you're alive."

Raku's hand shot to his chest—but of course, the pendant was gone. It was stupid to expect a normal locket to have survived contact with that kind of heat. "Oh," he said, and he felt inexplicably sad. That pendant had been a part of him for ten years. Losing it meant ripping away the lifelong dream he had nurtured; he even considered for a moment whether it had really been worth his life. At the same time, he couldn't believe that he actually...killed someone, even if it had been in the heat of the moment, defending a girl dear to him. Especially someone that powerful...someone that was a god.

And if he killed a god, did that mean he was now...?

"I...I guess you guys would know better than me what came next," Raku said. He didn't feel different, though. He felt okay—perhaps even better than okay, aside from a general tiredness and that headache from earlier—but he had no idea whether becoming a "Campione" happened instantly or if it was something that occurred over time. "What... What does it mean, to become a Campione? And that name—En-do-vel-i-cus? Was that who the Heretic God was?"

"From what we've seen of his Authorities, that is most likely the case," Chitoge's dad said. "Endovelicus is a Lusitanian solar god, his domain being healing as well as—" Here, his smile turned bitterly ironic. "—public safety, which is what distinguishes him the most from similar solar gods such as Apollo. I'm not sure if you noticed, but the trail you followed wasn't a trail to begin with; there used to be buildings on that path that were shifted aside by the Heretic God's Authorities—oh, excuse me, Authorities refers to a god's powers—and it turned our grid-based streets to something a little more concentric, at the same time burying ordinary traffic like the police inside the shifted buildings."

Raku's eyes widened. "Seriously? Was anyone hurt?"

"The number of casualties amongst the ordinary populace isn't few, but for an incident involving a Heretic God it was thankfully low." It wasn't a direct answer, but Raku could tell Chitoge's dad was silently telling him not to worry. He was about to argue, but then considered that he himself told Chitoge that she couldn't blame herself for something that amounted to a natural diaster, so he grumpily acquiesced. "You may also want to know that most of the people attacked directly—which includes the people you saw fallen on the ground—had been afflicted by a trance similar to a drug-induced one; luckily, the majority of cases were resolved quickly. The cover-up effort will be extensive, however. It won't be easy to rearrange entire buildings in the short amount of time we have, on top of modifying the memories of every ordinary citizen involved."

"Huh, you do stuff like that?" Raku didn't think either the Shuei-gumi or the Beehive was suited for that at all, though maybe they had the connections.

"No, that's the responsibility of the History Compilation Committee—that's Japan's magic association, by the way. In incidents involving magic, your father's group and my own usually contribute logistical support only, as the number of our own mages could be counted in one hand. Only around this area, of course, as anywhere else it's more efficient to call on the more local organizations, or perhaps the Yamaguchi-gumi, instead." Chitoge's dad glanced over to the other man in the room. "As for your question about Campiones..."

"From past records, we know that as soon as you kill a god, you turn into a Campione," the Ichijou head said bluntly. "There were cases where the god-slayer was on the verge of death on their first victory, and the transformation healed them to perfect health just fine. We don't know the exact details of the ritual, only that the goddess Pandora designed it and she oversees the process somehow."

Pandora...that was a familiar name. It rang nostalgically in Raku's mind—he was sure he heard it before, though he couldn't quite figure out where.

"Campiones receive an additional boost to their capabilities," Raku's father continued, "such as drastically increased magic capacity, a constitution that negates magic, and most importantly, Authorities usurped from the gods that they slew. In this case, a very potent ability to heal. It's not an exaggeration to say that with the abilities a Campione receives, he or she becomes powerful enough to cease being human entirely."

Raku frowned. "Bullshit."

There was silence for a moment. Then, a severe look came across his father's face. "Excuse me?"

The boy suddenly realized what he let slip and he almost cringed. His "girlfriend" was looking at him in surprise, and even her father had raised an eyebrow. He really didn't know why he said that—only that something in him disagreed vehemently to being labelled as "not human".

"Er, I mean, isn't that a bit dramatic? Getting some powers isn't a really big deal—well, actually, maybe it should be, considering I didn't even know they existed before—but come on, 'cease being human' is just overblowing things for no good reason." Though maybe he was assuming too much on his current status, as right now he was feeling less like "a triumphant Campione who emerged victorious against a god" and more like "a slightly dinged Campione who was loitering uselessly in a hospital with his girlfriend and two geezers".

Wow. "Champion". It still felt very off trying to apply that word to him.

The Ichijou head scowled. "Brat, if it wasn't for your position right now even being my son or being hospitalized wouldn't stop me from bashing your head in. What you said borders on taboo. Adelt already told you that they're automatically made kings of their home country—do you know why? It's because no human can stand up against them. _None_. Only a few years ago, a Campione shut down the entire city of Alghero on a whim. A single incantation was all it took to halt transportation, communications, and electronics for half a day—that's how helpless humanity is in the face of Campiones. They're powerful enough that laws can't touch them, boy. They're powerful enough to be above morals and ethics."

"...No."

His father gave him a cool look. "Care to say that again?"

Raku hesitated, then obliged. "No," he repeated, and suddenly he was filled with a conviction that this was the right thing to do. "You're wrong, old man. Turning into a Campione doesn't actually make them stop being human, does it? It's _you_ who think that way. It's _you_ who think that suddenly giving someone powers changes the kind of person they are, just like that. Shouldn't you have more faith in them? Or no, even more importantly, shouldn't you realize that that person suddenly has powers that they have no idea what to do with, and help guide them _before_ they turn into someone who'd disregard the law!?"

Raku's voice had risen on his last few words; he couldn't hold back the frustration he felt when he realized his father was actually trying to push authority onto someone who wasn't ready, and it didn't help that he could consider his own son as anything other than human.

"If I'm to be a Campione—" His eyes met Chitoge's startled ones, before he reddened slightly and averted his eyes. "—I wouldn't want my friends to treat me any differently! So shut up and get your butt in gear, old man. You ain't dying for another few decades—you may as well put to full use the guidance that led Shuei-gumi for its best years."

For a moment, Raku's father had this stunned sort of look to him that Raku hadn't seen since the only time Raku had exploded with his frustrations about being born into a yakuza family. It was only when Chitoge's dad started chuckling did the Ichijou head regain himself, shaking his head.

"Brat," he said. "That's a naïve perspective if I've heard one, and you'll learn soon how optimistic you're being—and how little any of it will matter." But he had a hint of pride under his tone, too, as he spoke.

"I didn't think you had it in you. But you know, I'm glad you said that out loud," Chitoge said warmly. Her eyes gazed at him, a little admiring.

"Er, thanks?" Raku replied, though he wasn't entirely sure what Chitoge meant.

"That's an impressive conviction you displayed there, Raku-kun," Chitoge's dad remarked. "However, I should tell you that there's something rather important your father and I have been discussing that may necessitate ignoring regular laws and morals."

"Yeah?" Raku said warily. "What do you mean?"

"Well..." Chitoge's father paused, as if not sure how to proceed. Finally, he seemed to settle on something, and continued with an easy smile. "It's natural for a king to have a harem, right?"

Raku's brain short-circuited. "_...WHAT!?_"

Chitoge flushed. "_Papa!_"

The Beehive head scratched his chin. "Hmm. Maybe that wasn't the best way to go forward, after all."

"W-wait, hold up," Raku stammered. "J-just so that we're on the same page, w-we're talking about, uh, _that_ kind of 'harem', right? Th-the—the 'multiple partners' thing?"

"Well what _else_ could it be!?" Chitoge snapped.

"I have no idea, but I was hoping it'd be that instead! I-I mean, why are we even talking about this!?"

"Well," Chitoge's dad began, "as both of you know, we asked you two to pretend that you were dating so that our groups would make peace with each other instead of trying to assert their territory day in and day out. This situation is something similar. As our newest Campione is from this area, before the History Compilation Committee could try to get close those of us in the area decided to provide a _very good reason_ to stay close to us..."

"Not that it was in question, of course," Raku's father said. "After all, you two are fairly close, aren't you?"

And that was when Raku suddenly realized something that he _really_ should've seen before. His eyes darted to Chitoge, who was doing a very good job of staring at the floor. Her face was just as red as his own felt. "You...you're planning to put Chitoge in...?" he stammered, his voice much higher-pitched than normal.

Chitoge's dad blinked in surprise, but then he nodded. "After some deliberation, yes. The Beehive should commit its direct heir too, after all. Also, Commissioner Tachibana wants in, and he wants to engage his daughter Marika at the same time. You probably won't have to worry about seeing unfamiliar faces."

"H-her too...?" Marrying him to both Chitoge and Marika. _At the same time_. By this point, Raku's head was spinning, and he nearly felt like passing out in a heap until the day came when the world actually made sense again.

Chitoge's father clapped his hands together. "So! With that said, Raku-kun, would you say that multiple political marriages to one of the most powerful people on Earth is worth ignoring the law for?"

Raku just made a kind of a strangled squeaking noise.

"I'll take that as a yes, then!" The Beehive head beamed. "It's too bad since we kept it going this long, but as of this point I will officially declare your and Chitoge's engagement null and void."

"Yeah, sure!" Raku babbled, having just rebooted his brain and trying to scramble for something intelligent say.

Then what Chitoge's dad actually said processed in his mind.

"Wait, what?"

His expression of confusion must've been evidently different from what it was before, because the man's ever-present smile dimmed somewhat. "Er, your and Chitoge's engagement has been cancelled? Otherwise we wouldn't be able to legitimately engage you to our newest Campione, after all."

"But...wait. I thought the Campione was..." Bewilderedly, Raku pointed to himself.

For a full moment, a stunned sort of silence permeated the room. Then, the Ichijou head groaned, Chitoge's dad threw back his head and _laughed_, and even Chitoge let slip a snicker.

"Of all the things my foolish son could have thought up..." Raku's father said in disbelief. "No, you simpleton! All you managed to inflict on Endovelicus was a sword wound. Did you really think that's enough of a feat to elevate the likes of you to Campione status?"

"Then—what—huh!? Of course I thought it was me, there was no one else it could've been, except—" Raku swung to face Chitoge.

"N-no, no, it wasn't me!" Chitoge choked out in between fits of giggles. Calming herself down somewhat, she continued with a chuckle, "I was out cold for most of it, remember?"

"But—then—then who was it!?" Raku cried.

"Raku-kun," the Beehive head chortled, "I mean no disrespect by this, of course, but Campiones are beings that are more—what's the word you used earlier?—_absurd_ than you will ever hope to be. For example, someone who through sheer luck, ten years ago in a certain rural region of Japan, broke through multiple layers of protective enchantments that not even your father and I could, making off with the most powerful artifact known to exist called Pandora's Lock—and then gave it away for a childish promise! This is of course the same girl who followed you all the way from school out of worry, and when she saw you about to be struck down by a wounded god, leapt in to save you—and in the presence of a being that make even hardened mages tremble in fear, she calmly undid the Lock in front of the raging divinity, thereby unleashing a wave of energy powerful enough to annihilate the weakened god..."

He picked up something that looked like a remote control from the nightstand, and then pointed it at the door. "Raku-kun," he said, clicking on the device, "let me introduce you to your new fiancée."

And before the dumbstruck boy, the door whooshed open to admit the nervous, blushing figure of Onodera Kosaki who looked like she was about to bolt at any moment.

"H-hi, Ichijou-kun!" she stammered, not quite meeting his eyes. "Um, your dad's telling me that I'm the new king of Japan now?"

* * *

_**Endnote: The one thing that popped out at me while I was thinking about Campiones one day wasn't their out-of-this-world powers, but the sheer potential they have in **__**shattering**__** the power balance in relationships. Being turned into the highest being on the social food chain should be wreaking complete and utter havoc on a Campione's former friendships, and I was kinda disappointed there didn't seem to be any fics trying to deal with that. There're so many interesting things that could come out of it, I thought...such as breaking up two friends' fake-dating so that they could both be placed in a mutual friend's harem.**_

_**Of course, even if I say that I didn't actually get into it in this fic, so just consider my spiel the direction I imagine this fic would go if it's continued.**_

_**Also, if you couldn't figure out what the title represents, well, you weren't really supposed to 'cause that was more a non-spoilery private joke than anything... It's supposed to stand for Onodera Kill-Steal.**_


	2. And That's Why…

**Disclaimer: Nisekoi is owned by Naoshi Komi and Campione! by Jou Takedzuki. I own absolutely nothing in relation to either of these works, except for the plot of this particular story.**

* * *

When Chitoge came to, her throat felt swollen and gritty, as if stuffed with sandpaper. Not surprising, considering what had happened before she blacked out.

Mages. Flames. _Heretic God_.

With that particular thought came all the memories of what spared her from the God in the first place, and she crawled to her knees as she rasped out the name of the one who so foolishly, foolishly tried to save her.

"R...Raku..."

"Chitoge-chan!"

Hearing a voice she didn't expect, she looked up. Against a backdrop of broken buildings and fallen bodies was Onodera Kosaki, of all people, cradling the bloody and beaten form of a teenage boy in her arms. Chitoge's heart sank; the other girl's tear-streaked face told her everything.

"H-he's not moving... I-I think he's not even _breathing_..." Kosaki hiccupped, her voice despairing. Her key lay forgotten on the ground by her knee, as was Raku's closed locket. "No... Not after all this..."

Chitoge crawled over to them, feeling weak in her arms. It was worse than she thought. She looked at the dismembered arm lying still and inert some distance away, and knew the sound of it being lopped off her friend's body would haunt her nightmares for years to come. His torso was sunk in horribly, pulverized by some inhuman blow, while blood leaked from the corner of his mouth. His face was ashen. But when Chitoge saw his expression, she bit back a choked sob and clenched her hand so hard it hurt. She cursed him. She cursed Raku—so kind, so altruistic, so concerned with his friends and _not nearly enough about himself_—for having the gall to make that faint, almost relieved, smile on his lips.

"Stop being so cocky, bean sprout..." Chitoge muttered, her throat still burning with pain, but feeling the need to say something, anything, regardless. "What did you even do? You were just getting tossed around like a rag doll all the time...! Idiot... You idiot...! Don't let it end like this...!"

Somehow, Chitoge missed it at first when Kosaki's eyes turned determined and her voice became firm.

"No," she agreed, "I won't end it like this. _A sacrifice, an offering, a blood-soaked man. By three gifts mortal hands placed upon mine altar, hear me, sleep for me, accept from me_."

Chitoge's gaze drifted to her. "Kosaki-chan...?" she whispered, and then her breath caught.

The other girl was _luminous_. Like the sun shining through a gap in the clouds, Kosaki was hard to look at, and difficult not to feel the warmth radiating off of. Chitoge could feel the divinity washing over her, nearly sweeping her away with its pressure alone, and it was only then that she wondered: why had she assumed that the Heretic God simply walked away from them?

Kosaki leaned in and sealed the boy's lips with her own.

The spectacle that played out rendered the blonde girl dumbstruck. Raku was healing; or rather, it was as if the very world was quickly patching together the boy, in the manner of a child hiding a half-eaten lollipop behind his back, to deny that Raku had been hurt in the first place. The dismembered arm shot up to its rightful place where the damaged tissue smoothed over, while his caved chest area rose as if he were taking a deep breath of life. Every drop of his spilt blood vanished without a trace, and his regular skin tone was restored in the blink of an eye.

In the midst of it all, Chitoge remembered. The words her father had told her, so long ago, of beings so powerful and fantastical even her child's mind had deemed them nonsense. The beings whose existence had been proven to be real, beyond a shadow of doubt, before her very eyes.

Godslayers. She was standing in the presence of a Campione.

In her peripheral vision, she saw her father with Raku's father land from somewhere outside her view, making his way towards the girls, and suddenly, Chitoge felt relief blossom from the bottom of her soul. She was safe. With a Campione right next to her, and her father making his way to her, she was finally, finally safe.

"Chitoge-chan..." The voice drew Chitoge's attention back to the Campione, who was staring at the blonde as if she had just noticed the bruise no doubt swelling on her neck. "You're hurt too..."

Chitoge smiled weakly, the other girl's attention make her feel tingly. Maybe it was all that magic in the air. "I'm fine," she rasped, and then winced. "All right, I could be better. But it's nothing to—"

—_worry about_, she was about to say, except this was the moment that Kosaki leaned in to kiss her on the mouth.

Her father stumbled. She saw that out the corner of her eyes. Right now however, the majority of her attention was fixed on the fact that one of her dearest friends had, well, locked lips with her.

Later, Kosaki would apologize. She would explain, with a blushing face, that at that time, with her Authority called and magic filling every fiber of her being, when she had seen the other girl injured, she sought to heal her friend and, in her addled state of mind, had the epiphany that the best way to do so was by using the remaining vestiges of her Authority, for which the quickest and most efficient method meant pressing her mouth against Chitoge.

At this moment Chitoge only knew the taste of strawberry and there was only one real response she could give.

She fainted.

* * *

"And that," Chitoge said in a mortified tone, her flushed face hidden behind her hands, "is why Papa thinks Kosaki-chan swings both ways."

Kosaki was blushing equally red. Still on the hospital bed, as the adults had left earlier (and what a small mercy that was), Raku was gaping at them both, eyes darting between the two like one might break down and admit they were joking.

Needless to say, they were not.

"I...okay," Raku said, still looking stupefied. "That has...got to be the weirdest yet hottest story I've ever heard."

"Raku!" Chitoge snapped, her face going an even deeper red.

"Ichijou-kun!" Kosaki squeaked at the same time.

"Gah! Sorry, I didn't mean to say that out loud!"

"That doesn't make it any better!" Chitoge cried, wishing she had a baseball bat with which to beat out her "boyfriend's" most recent memories.

"Th-then what am I supposed to do, stop thinking?!"

"Can't you at least talk about something _other_ than the k-kiss itself?!"

"Well—well, okay. Uh, then, j-just how serious were my old man and your father in, you know, g-getting us both engaged to Onodera?"

Chitoge screwed her eyes shut and took a deep breath: in, then out. Close enough, she conceded through the rough mental equivalent of gritting her teeth.

"With the papers they signed, our engagement to Kosaki-chan is a fact from a legal perspective," Chitoge said in the most neutral tone she could muster, since Kosaki on the chair beside her was indisposed as a blushing and stuttering mess. "But what they actually said to her was something along the lines of, 'Hey Kosaki-chan, we know you're pretty close to our kids here, so if you fancy them, feel free to take them with no questions asked'. You can't actually make a Campione get engaged, after all. So in practice, this arranged engagement with Kosaki-chan is more a move to reserve the top positions of her harem in case she finds new partners later in life."

There was a very pregnant pause when Chitoge finished speaking, which she tried to ignore by staring straight ahead at the opposite wall.

"Chitoge-chan," Kosaki said with a voice on the verge of trembling, and this time she was the one hiding behind her hands. "I can't believe you said all that with a straight face."

So much for her stoicism.

"You don't need to point that out!" she wailed, diving under Raku's bedcovers to hide the blood suddenly rising to her cheeks. "Change the topic, change the topic!"

"Um, um—so, Raku-kun!" Kosaki said in a flurry, naturally having turned to the only person in the room whose mental state was fit to converse. "How are you feeling? Any itching? Pains, sore muscles? Some premonition you can't explain where you got it from that your arm's about to burst into flames without warning?"

"Uh, w-well, I guess I'm all right for the most— Wait, did you just put a really, really scary suggestion in there?!"

"Kyah! I, I'm sorry, I'm still don't know how I know how my power for healing works even now when I just finished using it many times in a row so I'm worried whether I did it wrong or it won't power down somehow—"

Chitoge jerked her head out. "K-Kosaki-chan, calm down!"

"There's no way you messed anything up!" Raku added. "Er, just checking, but this _is_, well, _my_ arm, right?"

"Yes and you're not helping!" Chitoge snapped. "Kosaki-chan, look, Campione get to understand their abilities on an instinctual level—you, as a Godslayer, just _don't_ make a mistake while using your power, and it's just as impossible for it to fail in any way. I know for sure Papa mentioned that to me before."

"Didn't you say—" Raku began, but Chitoge threw him a glare promising a lifetime's quota of pain if he tried to bring up the point that the Beehive head taught this to Chitoge over ten years ago. Raku wisely shut up.

"So don't worry about it. I have full confidence in you, Kosaki-chan," Chitoge said. "If you're still not sure, how about trying to explain what you learned of your power up until now? You might be surprised at how much you actually do know."

"W-well..." Kosaki hesitated for a moment, unsure, before she took Chitoge up on her suggestion. "My, um, my Tribute Before Dreams need three things to activate as far as I can understand: something to give up, something to give, and the person who did both actions. I don't know how to explain it well, but these three things can be almost anything—one act can fulfill two of them at once—and I'm really surprised at how much I can interpret things to fit in the context of the three conditions. For example, Chitoge-chan, I could heal your neck injury because I accepted you telling me that it was nothing as giving me reassurance, and giving up your sense of comfort. On the other hand, Raku-kun, I could heal you because I accepted your fight with the Heretic God as a display of giving your effort, and your self-sacr—y-your _near_-self-sacrifice as the life you were willing to give up. It could be as abstract or material as that—in fact, there's no one that I wasn't able to heal yet, and my power heals them completely."

"Yeah?" Raku seemed interested. "I dunno how to put this, but it sounds like something that lets you heal only people you accept—but since it's you, Onodera, since you accept everyone, it lets you heal anyone. Looking it that way, it really suits you the best."

Whoa. Chitoge looked at him from the corner of her eyes, and thought: He actually said something that corny out loud? Did he always shower compliments like that? Though of course, this being Kosaki, it was quite obvious that a blush was incoming in three, two—

"Yes!" Kosaki gave a positively luminescent smile. "So if you ever get hurt, Ichijou-kun, promise to come to me right away, okay? I'll definitely heal you as much as you need!"

For the second time in a row, Chitoge felt stunned. On the bed, Raku looked about the same, except with a healthy shade of red to go with the full blast of the Campione's radiance that hit him in the face. Whatever happened to the demure, shy Kosaki who would flush whenever a boy tried to ask her out?

"W-well, see?" she said, putting on a grin. "You _are_ confident in your power!"

"Oh! You're right... Looks like your suggestion worked like a charm. Thank you, Chitoge-chan!"

Raku scratched his cheek, seeming somewhat nervous...or more likely, abashed. A smile as dazzling as the sun and just as warm accomplished wonders like that. "S-speaking of which, a little while back, Adelt-san mentioned that everyone who's been afflicted by Endovelicus was healed. I guess you were the one who did that, huh."

"Ah." Chitoge recalled what Kosaki said earlier. "You did mention you used your Authority many times in a row..."

Many times in a row...used her Authority...

And suddenly, Chitoge's mind flashed back to when she tasted the touch of sweet strawberry. In other words, that fateful moment where Kosaki's lips had met hers.

She could not tell what kind of face she was making at the moment. Perhaps it was some concoction between frozen realization and pure flabbergast. "You...healed..._all_ of them...?"

Kosaki and Raku turned to her at the same time, obviously wondering about the strangled tone behind her words. "Well...yes?" Kosaki said. "It would be horrible of me not to, since I had the capacity..."

"But...your Authority! It—it—" Chitoge gesticulated wildly, words failing her. "Doesn't it—doesn't it need—you know—!"

"What, Chitoge? Just spit it out already," Raku said.

And then Chitoge could sidestep the issue no longer.

"You mean you _kissed_ every one of them!?" she blurted out.

A pause. Then:

"Eh?"

Kosaki's eyes slowly widened.

"EHHHHHH?!"

Raku stared at Chitoge, slack-jawed. "That...makes a disturbing amount of sense..."

"No, no, no! No, it doesn't!" Kosaki cried, flailing her arms in denial. "Chitoge-chan, you're misunderstanding this completely! I mean, I know you might think that's the only way I can do it, since that's how I did it to you and— Ichijou-kun, why are you crying?!"

And indeed, great fat drops of tears were spilling out of the corner of his eyes while the boy gazed into the distance somewhere beyond the confines of this hospital room. His expression showed a swirl of intense emotions only he himself had any hope of naming.

"I'm not sure," he answered, sniffing. "I just felt I wouldn't be a real man if I didn't."

"I—what—" Kosaki's mouth worked fruitlessly for a few moments, but apparently had nothing constructive to add, so she cut her losses by rounding back on the blonde. "Chitoge-chan, honestly!" she wailed. "Can you really see me doing something like that? Think about it a little! Please!"

Chitoge did as she was told. She tried to imagine it. Granted, the only inspiration she had to draw from was the miniscule amount she heard from Seishirou of the previous Japanese Campione's legendary womanizing habits, so instead of seeing the usual Kosaki in her mind, what her imagination actually consisted of was some curious mixture of devilish seduction, uncontested dominance, and kiss orgies. Lots of kiss orgies.

She looked at the other girl with something akin to reverence. "I...I don't know whether to call that frightening or magnificent..."

Kosaki really should have denied it right off the bat. She finally decided to do so now. "I DIDNNNNNN'T! All I needed to do was hold their hands! Kissing only makes it more efficient! I'm sorry I didn't explain this to you fiiiiirrrst!"

She broke off panting for breath, face red as a tomato, and Chitoge was snapped out of her rather deviant fantasies with a healthy dose of mortification.

"Oh. Oh!" She looked away in a fluster, suddenly unable to believe she had said such things. "I—I—I'm really sorry, Kosaki-chan! I was too hasty, and jumped to conclusions, and I really should've known better—"

"No, no, don't worry about it," Kosaki said quickly. "It was partly my fault too, for forgetting that kind of detail."

"F-for what's it's worth, Onodera, I apologize too," Raku said in embarrassment. "For, er, losing myself like that. Since, well, I'm still having trouble believing we did that too. K-kiss, I mean. Us two."

And with _that_ brought up again, both girls, the innocent teenagers they were, could only flush at the complete and utter mess their lives turned into. There really was no denying it when the boy had to specify which kiss among three people he was referring to. Chitoge stared down at her lap, convinced that there was _something_ witty she could say that would defuse the situation and at the same time steer them away from it. She was coming up with a blank.

"That was my first kiss," Raku muttered very unhelpfully.

Just like that, an uncomfortable silence descended again, each of the three stewing in their respective seats and not at all sure how to face the others. Chitoge could not help but to compare the stiffness in the room with how they had mingled before the Heretic God had come along. Yes, a part of it was that it wasn't usually just the three of them; there had been Ruri, and Seishirou, and that ever-infuriating Marika and let's not go into Shuu. But before, it had been clear-cut. Two people fake-dating, plus the rest of a group of mutual friends, and it had been _fun_. And now... Two of them had kissed the same person, which apparently qualified them for an engagement on the spot, with perhaps one more joining the apparent harem, should Marika actually get over her obsession with Raku. _Fun_ was apparently feeling a little twitchy from having _awkward_ staring daggers into its back.

"Will we really be all right like this...?" Chitoge said softly.

The other two looked at her. "What do you mean, Chitoge-chan?" Kosaki asked.

Chitoge raked her hair in frustration. She didn't especially want to say it out loud, but someone had to. "I mean, this whole—_engagement_ thing. For goodness' sake, it's just a stupid idea a few old geezers came up with when they had nothing better to do—I'm sure you two don't like the fact you were _forced_ together—"

"That's not it!" two voices blurted out at the same time, and Chitoge was startled into looking up fast enough to see Raku and Kosaki meet each other's eyes in surprise and then turn away just as quickly, red colouring their faces.

"Huh?" Chitoge said blankly.

"W-well, that's—my old man has a point, with a good connection to the magic side of the world like he claims he is, Onodera would have an easier time as a Campione," Raku stammered. "If so, well, I kind of want to help her as much as I can, you know?"

"A-and Ichijou-kun is the closest male friend I have who knows I'm a Campione now," Kosaki added. She looked down in embarrassment; her steadily reddening face made it look as if kettle pot steam were about to gush from her ears, but she kept talking. "I...I want to have a family one day, so...I honestly can't pick better than him, right?"

Chitoge looked at the two of them, fidgeting in embarrassment, staring at everything but each other, not able to spit out the honest truth until the very end...

And she had to hold back a laugh.

She couldn't believe she didn't see it before. How skittish they were around each other when in their own world. How red in the face they could go when their proximity was particularly close. How they backed each other every single time when connected by a quiet, unspoken agreement...

There had been enough hints, hadn't there? About who each of them had been secretly crushing on, even before the whole fake-dating shenanigan even started.

Suddenly, Chitoge felt like an intruder.

"But what about you, Chitoge-chan?"

That comment made her jerk her head, and meet Kosaki's eyes, those eyes that were so kind yet so strong-willed. The blonde realized that the Campione was still talking about the marriage thing—the, frankly, sorta embarrassing part about Chitoge's own engagement to Kosaki—but somehow, she knew it wasn't entirely in the context of _Are you okay being with me?_ Instead, Kosaki's voice was tinged with concern over her and...

The Ichijou heir blinked, seeming confused.

She _knows_, Chitoge realized. Kosaki _knows_ who Chitoge's own object of affection was. And yet she still prodded the blonde girl towards the sole path left to her—she _still_ wanted to help her get closer! But that was the entire reason Chitoge couldn't, wasn't it? Even if Kosaki herself might be all right with it—which, by the _gods_, she pretty much confirmed with what she just said—Chitoge was suddenly afraid of stepping into the perfection of the inevitability that was _them_ and _together_. She was the third wheel. An _intruder_.

After all, she didn't even know if Raku felt the same way towards her. There was an oft-used label to the kind of people who acted despite that. To take advantage of the situation just to get as close as possible to Raku, when in all likeliness it would only end up a pointless affair—that would be disgusting.

"That actually reminds me of something," the boy said abruptly, saving Chitoge from the imperative of answering. "Back when Adelt-san first told me about his and my old man's...plans... Well, the thing is, in his own weird way, he was telling me what they were doing, why they were doing it, and gave me the chance to back off. Didn't he do the same to you, Chitoge?"

The girl frowned, somewhat thrown by the question. It almost sounded as if he were subtly telling her she wasn't welcome, but she doubted that was the case; Raku could be rude and annoying, but never mean. It was more likely he legitimately worried that going through with the engagement would make her uncomfortable. "Yeah, they did. Before you woke up. I'm not sure what you're getting at though."

Raku made a slight grimace. "Okay. Don't take this the wrong way, but why didn't you just refuse?"

"Oh, that? That's obviously because if the Beehive was going to commit an important member to Kosaki-chan, if I refused, Claude would be the next logical choice."

A few seconds after Chitoge said this offhandedly, she became aware that there was silence filling the air. Both Kosaki and Raku were staring at her, the former in confusion and the latter in a horrified sort of way.

"What?" she said defensively.

Unexpectedly, Raku leaned forward and clasped her hands in his. "Chitoge," he said solemnly, "I could kiss you right now."

At once, the blonde flushed. "Wha—_what?!_"

Kosaki let out a delighted squeal and clapped her hands together, her eyes sparkling. "Really, Ichijou-kun?"

Raku suddenly seemed to have realized what he said, and when he looked down on the hands he held, he instinctively let go. "I—gah! I didn't mean that literally, I swear! It's just—it's, well—"

For whatever reason, he snatched up Chitoge's hands with both of his own again, and said to her earnestly, "Look! I actually appreciate this. I'm really, really grateful for the fact that you did so much to keep that guy from trying being engaged to—oh god, I can't even bear saying that out loud! For the love of all things holy, Chitoge, please, _marry Onodera_._ Marry her so that no one else like that will have to_."

"I get it, Raku, your face!" she yelped. "Too close, too close!"

And indeed, the boy had been unintentionally leaning closer with every word his face was almost touching hers. He started, backing off quickly. "S-sorry! But, uh, yeah, please do that, I'm begging you. I'll be relieved if it's you with Onodera than that four-eyes." He smiled, apparently forgetting entirely the fact that Kosaki could have rejected such an advance herself (not that there was a need for Chitoge to point this out though). Then, Raku looked away in embarrassment. "And, um, about that k-k-kissing-you-right-now thing—"

"I get it," she said hastily. It was a slip of the tongue, he hadn't really meant it, he'd like for her to please forget that tiny detail, _et cetera et cetera_. Chitoge opened her mouth to convey her agreement.

What actually came out was: "But I don't know, you're asking a lot from me. Isn't one kiss a pretty cheap payment for all that?"

Oh, now she's gone and done it.

"Ch-Chitoge?" Raku stammered.

The blonde girl was saved by the timely interference of Kosaki, who apparently decided that the boy would not get away without things ending the way she wanted. "Ichijou-kun! You can't back off now!"

Raku suddenly looked doubly afraid. "O-Onodera?"

"Since I kissed you first then kissed Chitoge-chan, it's like you've indirectly kissed already! There's nothing to be embarrassed about, so you should take the next step!"

"What kind of world operates by that convoluted logic?!" he yelped.

"The kind of world where you're both members of _my_ harem and have to get along as that position demands!" she said triumphantly.

"...Damn. Damn, I actually can't argue with that..." Raku seemed to be mind-blown by the infallibility of such logic, before he noticed something. "Wait, Onodera, did you just say 'my' harem?"

"Eep! U-um, I mean—oh!" The Campione somehow managed the incredible feat of cutting herself off mid-blush to pout at the boy. "Ichijou-kun, you are not changing the subject!"

Chitoge stared bewilderedly as Kosaki egged Raku on further. Amazingly, the boy was losing ground quickly. Honestly, Campiones really were superhumans that could do anything if they set their minds to it. Either that, or Raku just couldn't bear having to say no to Kosaki. Maybe both.

The blonde girl chuckled weakly, shaking her head. She couldn't help it, the tiny bud of relief that sprouted inside her. She had worried about getting between them, had worried that it would only be an exercise in forcing herself onto them, but—the boy had insisted. He had been adamant. He _wanted_ her.

And so did the sweet, kind-hearted girl who even now was looking out for her in whatever way she could.

"Thank you, Kosaki-chan," Chitoge said under her breath, so quietly that even the Campione's hearing might not have caught it. There was still a tinge of red on her cheeks left from the vibrant shades that had coloured through her face earlier.

It looked like even as they are, marital statuses mangled beyond all relief—well, it looked like they were going to be all right after all.


End file.
